Market turns range bound

Key benchmarks were hovering in a narrow range near day's high in early afternoon trade. At 12:22 IST, the barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex, was up 260.44 points or 0.70% at 37,425.60. The Nifty 50 index was up 78.05 points or 0.69% at 11,322.75. Shares jumped on bargain hunting after a recent sell off.

The indices opened higher and firmed up in mid-morning trade. Indices turned range bound in early afternoon trade. The Sensex rose 297.42 points, or 0.80% at the day's high of 37,462.58 in mid-morning trade. The index rose 154.45 points, or 0.42% at the day's low of 37,319.61 in early trade. The Nifty rose 91.45 points, or 0.81% at the day's high of 11,336.15 in mid-morning trade. The index rose 49.85 points, or 0.44% at the day's low of 11,294.55 in early trade.

Among secondary barometers, the BSE Mid-Cap index was up 0.98%. The BSE Small-Cap index was up 1.11%. Both these indices outperformed the Sensex.

The market breadth, indicating the overall health of the market, was tilted in favour of buyers. On BSE, 1695 shares rose and 702 shares fell. A total of 120 shares were unchanged.

Most cement shares declined. Ambuja Cements (down 0.5%) and ACC (down 0.19%), edged lower. UltraTech Cement was up 0.84%.

Grasim Industries was down 0.44%. Grasim has exposure to cement sector through its holding in UltraTech Cement.

Telecom shares were in demand. Reliance Communications (up 7.55%), Tata Teleservices (Maharashtra) (up 6.98%), MTNL (up 2.22%) and Idea Cellular (up 1.38%), edged higher.

Telecom major Bharti Airtel was down 0.27%.

Telecom tower infrastructure provider Bharti Infratel was up 0.1%.

On the macro front, the Indian service sector remained in expansion territory for the second consecutive month in July. The seasonally adjusted Nikkei India Services Business Activity Index posted above the neutral 50.0 threshold for the second consecutive month in July. Moreover, rising from 52.6 in June to 54.2 in July, the latest reading signalled the strongest rate of output growth since October 2016. Favourable demand conditions were cited by panellists as the key factor behind the latest upturn. The data was unveiled during trading hours today, 3 August 2018.

Overseas, Asian stocks were mixed. The mood was cautious amid an elevation in trade tensions between the US and China. The trade war between the world's top two economies intensified midweek after US President Donald Trump raised pressure on China by proposing a higher 25% tariff on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports. China reportedly responded on Thursday, saying that it was fully prepared to defend the interests of the people and free trade.

Investors were also cautious ahead of the July US jobs report due later on Friday, which will give a reading on the health of the world's largest economy and possible clues about the pace of Federal Reserve interest rate rises.

US stocks ended a rocky session decidedly higher on the back of a record rally by Apple that took the iPhone maker to a market cap above $1 trillion, a runup that helped Wall Street set aside bothering trade issues between the US and China.

On the US data front, initial jobless claims rose by 1,000 in the latest week, however they were near their lowest levels since the 1970s. The report comes a day ahead of the highly anticipated July jobs report. Separately, factory orders rose 0.7% in June.

Investors also digested the latest moves from the Bank of England (BoE), which pushed interest rates above their financial crisis lows on Thursday but signalled it was in no hurry to raise them further with an uncertain Brexit on the horizon. BoE raised its main interest rate by 25 basis points to 0.75%, as had been expected.

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